DEAR SIR, Well done all on the figures presented in last week’s BETTER farm page in the Irish Farmers Journal. I believe you have now got to the point where we have a format/model which provides real benchmark data on our profitability overall and per hour worked. That is superb information, and all us farmers, advisers and commentators should be focused on this figure.

Gross margin per hectare, the prime figure focused on when I was a participant, did not provide the complete picture. Bringing in fixed costs and putting a value on the rate per hour for hours worked really show the true situation. I notice fixed costs are more realistically closer to €600/ha compared with Teagasc’s €500/ha generally used. I suggest we consider this in future budget costings published.

You can argue it excludes BPS but it also excludes any return on investment in land, buildings, stock and machinery.

Granted it is year one of the new programme but working for a labour rate of €2.37/hour is nothing less than shocking, and in the light of up and coming CAP discussions, more work is required to highlight these figures. If EU consumers were aware we were working for €2.37/hour, they might be more sympathetic to beef farmers who provide top-quality food and are in danger of going out of business unless we have major change.